NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Former Safaricom #ticker:SCOM chief executive Michael Joseph is set to step down as Vodafone’s director of mobile money later this year as part of a wider plan to disengage from all his full-time roles at the telecom giant.

Mr Joseph, who is the chairman of Kenya Airways #ticker:KQ, is also set to relinquish his non-executive director positions at Vodafone’s African subsidiaries — Vodacom Mozambique, Vodacom Tanzania and Vodacom Group South Africa.

He was appointed Vodafone’s director of mobile money in 2011, as the UK-based telecom firm sought to tap his knowledge to replicate the Kenyan M-Pesa success in other countries where it was being rolled out.

The 71-year-old says he is relinquishing his director positions partly to concentrate his energies on KQ, but also to dial down his active roles after decades of extensive work in the corporate world.

“I stepped down from a full-time role at Vodafone in December but I do some work for them. The plan is to fully step down from Vodafone and its companies towards the end of this year,” Mr Joseph told Business Daily in an interview.